Dating After 50: Is Your Long Lost Love Online?

If you’re interested in online dating and you’re over 50, you might consider using the general networking sites that bring people together who used to know one another but have lost contact over the years.

Remember that great guy from 8th grade or your girlfriend in high school? Reaching out to them through Facebook or Classmates.com may prove to be an interesting and rewarding experience. Sure, they may not be available (you can usually find out quickly from their bio whether they’re single), but even if they seem single and turn out not to be, you’ll still have the fun of checking in and finding out about their life. Better yet, they may be unattached.

An ongoing study started in 1993 by Dr. Nancy Kalish found that 51 percent of the people in her study who had reconnected with a lost love were 40 or older — 37 percent were in their 40s and 50s, 10 percent were in their 60s, and 4 percent were over age 70.

Kalish found that older people who reconnected to childhood or previous sweethearts usually fell in love faster than other kinds of daters and got married more quickly. Many of these people felt immediately comfortable with the person from the past because they shared a history, even if it was long ago.

This may not work out for everyone; people almost certainly change a lot over the years. Still, even if your memory of a special person doesn’t match the person today, it’s certainly worth the effort to track the person down and find out whether an old flame can still heat up.